Handcuffs
by Tirainy
Summary: Where Sonic wants to try something new in bed and instead ends up with said bed in splinters, a severe bruising on his chest, a possible internal bleeding and way too many unanswered questions. [established Sonadow]


**AN: Here comes another of the promised one-shots! There's no actual 'dirty stuff' here, so don't worry. I'm rating this thing 'M' because, you know, I'd rather be safe than sorry...**

 ** **Disclaimer:**** I do not own any of the characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

* * *

It was supposed to be just another experiment. A stupid but completely harmless attempt on spicing up things in the bedroom.

Thus Sonic honestly did not understand how it could have turned out this wrong in the end.

He looked at the other hedgehog from his spot on the ground, the familiar bitter taste of his own blood at the back of his throat and his ribcage hurting as if a truck or a certain over-excited pink female had barreled into him at full speed. He was also pretty sure at least one of his ribs was broken. Which of them it was, however, he was not sure as his chest had yet to recover from being kicked with at least fifth of the speed of the sound into a wall; he literally could see the imprint of Shadow's foot on his chest, the area swelling with blood and turning darker with each breath he took.

In retrospect, his way of executing the idea might have been flawed from the very start.

But at the time, he honestly hadn't seen any possible harm in his way of executing the bondage idea—wake up early, hand-cuff Shadow to the bed while he was still sleeping and then kiss him awake—they had been together for some time now and it became somehow a tradition for them to try surprise each other in the bed. _Especially_ in the morning, the moment they woke up.

Early in their relationship, they had even established a keyword they could use to stop any of these encounters if either of them felt too uncomfortable with the particular new practice that they had decided to try out—or surprise each other with.

Though Sonic supposed that the idea to use the keyword might have not even crossed Shadow's mind; the moment the ebony hedgehog woke up and found out he was chained, the agent had basically stopped perceiving his surroundings and instead desperately tried to free himself; he'd tried to calm the agent but that for some reason only made Shadow freak out more.

—which resulted in the destruction of the room, bed and handcuffs and Sonic's chest painfully acquainting itself with Shadow's foot and his back meeting with the bedroom wall.

"Shadow," Sonic wheezed as he slowly pushed his arms under him to pick himself up, his chest heaving with pain that he tried his best to suppress. Small bits of the plaster from the wall were stuck to his back quills and some fell down to the floor like snowflakes just as he uprighted himself into a sitting position, green eyes meeting their intense red counterparts.

Sonic was sure that Shadow had not intended to harm him on purpose and had done so purely at instincts—on a reflex. However, why the agent had reacted in such a way in the first place, Sonic had no idea.

"Shadow," Sonic called again to his still partner, the ebony hedgehog not moving from his spot on the other side of the room, frozen like a statue in his half-crouch, tense and wary. The agent's crimson eyes were filled with cacophony of emotions and his face was twisted in something that looked like a mixture of agony and regret.

It was such an unusual expression to be seen on Shadow's face. Sonic was used to scowls, snarls, smirks and occasional smiles. Those were the most common and those were what the hero was used to seeing and had expected to see during this encounter.

But that was not what he was seeing here. It was almost impossible to believe, because, heck, they had been together for some time but Shadow had never before gave him such a look like he was doing now. Hell, nobody should ever look at their partner in such way.

Shadow should not be looking at him with actual _fear_ in his eyes.

"It's fine, Shadow. All is fine," Sonic tried as he raised his hands in a sign of surrender, gulping down the blood that had accumulated in his mouth. Heck, he hoped it was nothing serious like a punctured liver or something similar. Because, Chaos, it hurt like it. "I'm not doing anything, okay? You can calm down..."

Unsurprisingly, Shadow did not really react to the proposition. The obsidian agents only shifted his stance a bit, moving weight from one foot onto the other, the single lonely cuff that survived his sudden, unexpected panic attack still dangling from his right wrist.

Sonic's eyes involuntarily locked onto the metal band, the remains of the chain barely hanging onto the rest of it. Its double, along with the rest of the chain loops, was in pieces, scattered across the room.

Sonic honestly didn't care about the handcuffs being in pieces and at the same time he cared _a lot_ , because, dear Chaos, Shadow had literally _ripped_ the steel restrains in half with his inborn strength only. Yeah, the agent had destroyed the bed-frame to which he had been cuffed before doing so, but that only underlined how much raw physical power Shadow actually possessed.

It was utterly petrifying and extremely impressive at the same time.

Just like seeing Shadow have a panic attack.

Shadow did not have panic attacks. Hell, Shadow was the last person Sonic would expect to have one. And yet he had had one. Just now. It was obvious there were some underlying issues about Shadow and handcuffs that the agent needed to tell him about.

Sonic lowered his arms to cover his mouth with his hand, coughing up blood, staining his hand with the red liquid.

Yup, some internal bleeding was definitely going on as well. He really better get a check-up at hospital once he got this situation under control.

"...Sonic?"

Sonic raised his gaze at the sound of his partner's quite voice. Shadow's look was mostly emotionless now, though there was definitely realization creeping its way into Shadow's expression. Crimson eyes briefly swept over the room before locking onto the kneeling hedgehog, Sonic making sure to ball his bloodied hand into a fist before the agent could see it; he needed Shadow to calm down fully and him seeing that he had hurt him—albeit unintentionally—definitely wouldn't help the cause.

"Yeah, Shadow. You back with me?" Sonic asked, smiling his trademark toothy grin to reassure Shadow everything was okay...despite his liver saying otherwise. "You have one hell of a kick when startled, you know that?" he continued, laughing to elevate the tension in the room. However, that actions instead send him into a coughing fit; the hero had to hit his own chest to force the blood out of his airways, irritating the bruise on his chest and making him grit his teeth in pain.

" _Gah-!_ " The cobalt hero laid a hand onto the ground to steady himself, the other placed over his throbbing chest as he let out a sharp exhale through his nose. "I'm definitely going to feel that tomorrow..."

"Let...let me help you." Shadow quickly moved over to him, placing a hand on his side right over his ribs and the other under his arm to help him stand up. Sonic moved his hand to grip on the other's shoulder, steadying himself as he forced himself back on his wobbly legs, leaning heavily against the dark body before him for support.

Shadow immediately re-adjusted his grip to this new position, the hand that was previously on Sonic's ribs moving to the hero's lower back, pressing the blue-furred speedster closer and holding him steady. "Are you alright?" Shadow asked, his bare black-furred hand gently caressing the side of Sonic's face.

"I've been worse," Sonic mumbled, briefly leaning into the contact before laying his head onto the the agent's shoulder, closing his eyes and letting out an exhausted exhale, the warmth of the other's body somehow soothing the ache in his chest. "Though I surely wouldn't mind if my stomach decided to stop making flips..."

As Sonic expected, Shadow immediately moved his right hand down to his peach-colored abdomen at the remark, applying gentle pressure as he let his own chaos energy seep into Sonic's body to calm the irritated organ and heal the surrounding flesh. Sonic let out a deep breath, trying to stay put and not move too much; chaos healing felt the same as recovering from a minor frost-bite, a prickling sharp sensation coming to life in his insides and tissues anywhere Shadow's chaos energy decided to travel, mending the hidden inner injuries inside his body with ease.

"Feeling better?" Shadow asked as he moved his hand a bit higher, on the level of Sonic's breast, letting his chaos energy work on removing the dark bruise stretching across the hero's sternum, the treatment soon taking away the ache as well.

"Yeah..." Sonic weakly moved his head to nod, not really bothering to raise his head from the other's shoulder. "Mind explaining what happened...?"

"I..." The heat of Shadow's palm left Sonic's chest for a moment. "I...do not bear well being physically restrained."

Sonic almost wanted to laugh at the way the agent had answered the question; it was so typically _Shadow_. However, Sonic had to refrain from laughing as that would require spending energy he didn't have at the moment; without an aid of a Chaos Emerald chaos healing took a great amount of user's chaos energy and with the seriousness of his injuries Shadow had to use Sonic's energy as well so he wouldn't collapse from a complete chaos drainage. "Yeah, I've figured out as much..."

They fell into silence, Shadow clearly not wishing to expand on his answer and Sonic not pushing because he had a feeling he wouldn't get more information on the issue even if he asked; somehow he could tell that it was connected in some way to the training that Shadow had underwent while aboard ARK as it was the _only_ thing Shadow refused to talk about no matter how much he asked about it.

One day he _will_ get a proper answer regarding this issue out of Shadow; one day he will manage to convince the agent to let him help with his inner demons.

Shadow was helping him carry the burden of his own painful memories, it was only right for him to help carry some of Shadow's too.


End file.
